The inspection of tires has been a technique utilized for many years. An inspection apparatus for tires is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,160,537. A pneumatic tire spreader is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,043,565. A manually operated tire spreader is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 1,954,031.
Other United States patents that may relate to this field are as follows:
4293,1203790,1343568,9783157,3872966,3352179,8962035,9722028,4401863,7641352,8071352,6011345,849
In order to efficiently and quickly inspect tires, an apparatus is needed that would facilitate the separation of the beads of a tire to allow for a better view of the inside of the tire, especially the inner bead region commonly known in the trade as the turn up. There is also the necessity of quickly and efficiently inspecting a tire after the beads have been separated. Further, the tire spreader apparatus must be capable of separating the beads of tires of different sizes and to different widths. The tire spreader apparatus must therefore be amenable to such variations. A wide variety of inspection techniques is well known in the field. A particularly useful tire inspection apparatus is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,934,018, herein incorporated by reference.
This patent describes a technique for shining a laser onto a tire. A camera captures an image of the reflected laser light from the tire, and then the tire is subjected to a stress. Then the camera captures another image of the reflected laser light from the tire and then a computer calculate that digital information giving the results. Other techniques for tire inspecting apparatus are likewise disclosed in the '018 patent.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an adjustable tire spreader and inspection apparatus which can quickly and efficiently separate the beads of a tire of a variety of sizes of tires and likewise quickly and efficiently inspect the tire.